Puerto Rican Children's Codeswitching and their Performance on Receptive Vocabulary Instruments and a Nonverbal Cognitive Measure

Analyses of Puerto Rican bilingualism reveal the unique role of Spanish/English codeswitching in their communication. In the present study, 34 bilingual students (aged 9 to 13 years) of both sexes were administered forms of the Test de Vocabulario en Imágenes Peabody—Adaptación Hispanoamericana (TVIP-H) (Dunn, Padilla, Lugo & Dunn, 1986) and Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) (Dunn & Dunn, 1981), along with translations of both aforementioned tests. The Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) (Raven, 1958) was administered as a nonverbal cognitive measure. Standard scores were recorded; then, a separate set of combined scores was derived for the TVIP-H and PPVT-R and their respective translations, in which the student was given credit for items answered incorrectly in one language but correctly in the other. Standard scores were also recorded for the SPM. Results revealed significant mean differences between the TVIP-H monolingual vocabulary tests and its respective combined/bilingual scores. Both combined/bilingual instruments' results positively correlated with the nonverbal measure. These findings suggest that the influence of codeswitching/bilingualism on verbal tests must be accounted for with this population.